How to tell Blusher from Panther cap

The cap is 5-15 cm across, hemispherical in young mushrooms, later becoming convex to flat. The color is pinkish gray-brown, brownish pink, brick, darker in young mushrooms and paler in old ones. The surface is covered with noticeable whitish-grayish wartlike scales (remnants of the universal veil), scattered unevenly. In wet weather it is slightly sticky. The cap edge is smooth.

Cap 5–12 cm across, spherical or bell-shaped when young, later flattened-convex. The surface is shiny, brown, gray-brown or olive-brown, dotted with small pure-white warts, usually spread fairly evenly; rain can wash them off.

Gilled hymenophore: the gills are whitish, turning pink over time where damaged, free. The spore print is white.

Gills free, white, crowded. They don't change color when damaged — this sets them apart from a similar edible species (the blusher), whose flesh and gills turn pink.

The stem is 6-12 cm tall and 1-2 cm thick, cylindrical, with a distinct bulbous swelling at the base. The color is whitish above, with pink or reddish tints lower down. In the upper part there is a white ring with lengthwise grooves and a pinkish tint. The volva is indistinct: it appears as concentric pinkish-white warts on the swollen base (not as a sac).

Stem 6–12 cm tall, white, smooth, with a thin membranous ring in the upper part. At the base there is a bulb with remnants of the veil — not a free, sac-like volva, but one or more white woolly rings or a spiral above a narrow gutter on the bulb; this rimmed bulb distinguishes it from the blusher.

The flesh is white, slowly (over 1-5 min) turns pink to wine-red when cut; this is the main diagnostic feature of the species. It turns especially pink where slugs or insects have been feeding. In an old mushroom all the flesh in the lower stem is wine-pink. The smell is faint and pleasantly mushroomy.

Flesh firm, white, does not turn pink when damaged (a critical feature that distinguishes it from the similar blusher). No distinctive taste. The toxins are spread evenly throughout the whole fruiting body.

Faint and pleasantly mushroomy, with no distinctive notes. In old mushrooms, with a slight winey note.

Smell faint, neutral or slightly unpleasant — subtly radish-like or earthy. It is neither sharp nor repulsive, which makes it harder to sense the danger while foraging.